Administration Guidelines

Target Population

The purpose of the Scale of Job-related Social Skill Knowledge (SSSK) is to assess job-related social skill knowledge of secondary students (both male and female) aged 15 to 25 years, who are considered seriously emotionally disturbed or behaviorally disordered (EBD). The SSSK may also be administered to students who exhibit these disorders and who possess secondary disabilities including learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, and mild speech and language disorders.

Materials Needed for Testing

Test Administration Setting

The SSSK is designed to be administered individually to students using a verbal role-playing method The test should be administered in a private room free of distractions and interruptions. A small table should be available for the test administrator to facilitate easy access to the test manual. The student being tested should sit directly across from the test administrator so that clear communication can be maintained. Finally, the student should be situated so that he or she does not face possible distractions. such as a window, that could cause off-task behavior

Testing Procedures

The SSSK consists of 40 items and takes roughly 45 minutes to administer. During testing, the examiner should ensure that the student gives each test item careful attention and answers to the best of his or her ability. If the student appears to be losing concentration or is exhibiting inappropriate behaviors that interfere with the test administration process, the student should be cautioned about paying attention. If the situation becomes severe, testing should be terminated and rescheduled for another time.

The examiner should not coach, give hints, or help the students in any manner that might affect the validity of the test results. The student should be encouraged to answer all test items, and the examiner should give frequent verbal praise for appropriate test-taking behavior-not for correct or unique responses (e.g. “That's the way to listen." "Thanks for paying attention") to prevent frustration and to encourage maximum cooperation from the student.

Explain the testing procedure to the student as follows:

"I'm (examiner name). I am going to give you an oral test about getting along with other people at work. I will describe a problem situation to you, and ask you to tell me what you would say or do if you were actually in each of the situations. All of these are problems that students your age face at work. Some of them may be very familiar to you. You may have had the same problems yourself while other problem situations may not be familiar to you. For all of the situations, I want you to think carefully about what you would say or do if you were actually faced with the situation; and give me your best answer.

Some of the problem situations may be tough to answer so I want you to listen carefully to each situation. Try to imagine the situation so that you feel as if you're right there, then tell me what you would say or do if you were in the situation. Use the exact words and the same tone of voice you would really use. Don't spend too much time thinking about your answers because if you were really in the situation, you wouldn't have a chance to think very long. I'll write down the answer you give me. I may ask you to check what I write down to make sure it is right. We'll do one example so you can see what the test is like. It won't count on the test. Remember, since this is a test I can't help you think of the answers. Are there any questions?"

Answer any questions the subject may have. In our experience, most questions relate to a clarification of what the testing exchange is like. At this point, the practice item listed below should be administered. If necessary for the subject's comprehension, the item and question can be repeated, in some cases, it may be necessary to re-phrase or highlight particular points of a situation. If this re-phrasing is done, it is essential that no clue as to how to respond to the situation is given to the student. Moreover, the administrator and the student should avoid adding more information to the problem and focus only on the problem as it is written.

Practice Item

After completing the practice item say "OK, that wasn't hard and you did a good job. All of the questions are like this and involve an interaction with a work supervisor (boss) or a co-worker. Let's get started."

When administering each item, and immediately after asking "What would you say or do if you were in a situation like this? the student should respond with a short statement describing a discrete response or sequence of responses he or she would do if faced with that particular problematic situation. This response(s) should be recorded verbatim in the space allocated beneath the appropriate numbered problem on the test response form. At times the student's response may be rambling or disjointed. In such instances, listen carefully until the individual is done and then summarize the statements. If necessary for clarification, tell the student what was recorded and ask if the response has been written down correctly. If clarifications are given, it is appropriate to revise the written statement according to the student's input. After completing the item, go on to the next item in sequence in the testing manual. After administering and recording all of the individual's responses to all of the social problems, thank the student for their participation and turn to the rating of the different responses.

Scoring Guidelines

The examiner is responsible for evaluating the level of competence of the student's responses to test items using the criteria outlined in this section. In a very real sense, the way we judge one's social competence or skill in responding to a particular social problem is defined in large part by the nature of the social problem. A response in one situation may be very appropriate, but the same response to another situation may not be effective. Moreover, different raters may view the same response to a social interaction differently in the absence of rating criteria. To minimize this kind of error, and to promote scale reliability, the following steps should be followed in rating the student's response to each social problem comprising the SSSK

Each response should be scored on a 3-point scale of effectiveness. The scale values are offered below.

Examples of behavioral responses considered effective, fair, and ineffective responses to each of the social situations are provided later in this manual under each test item. Consequently, the response given to a particular problem by a subject should be compared to the responses listed for that problem for each of the three response categories. In some cases, the response given by an individual will match exactly a response listed in one of the categories of the scoring template. For example, a response to a social problem from the student may be "If I was in a situation like that I would go and talk to the shift foreman about the problem." Consulting the template for that problem reveals that a similar response, "talk to the boss about the situation," is listed within the effective category of responses. Therefore, the response should be considered as effective. However, the response given by the subject may not be similar to the responses given as examples within the categories of each item's scoring template. Thus, it will be necessary to judge the stated response in relation to the examples given in each of the three categories and then to make a decision regarding whether the response should be judged as effective. fair, or ineffective in resolving that particular situation.

Interpretation

In order to judge whether a student should receive training or not, their score must be compared to some criterion. There are four options available to provide such criteria. First, there is the population of students with EBD from our field-testing sample. Second, scores from vocational education students without disabilities provide the most stringent guide for judging acceptable performance on the scale. Third, a slightly less rigorous standard is provided by students with disabilities other than EBD. Fourth, as acceptable behavior may vary within individual job sites, it may be feasible to use the scores from a successful worker at the target students own job site as a criterion. Thus, the SSSK--and the companion social skill rating scale; the Scale of Job-related Social Skill Performance (SSSP)--could be completed on a worker with a positive work history to establish criteria in each of the areas. Examples of these four comparisons are presented below in a hypothetical example. Note that the standards listed for the vocational students without disabilities students with emotional or behavioral disorders, and students with disabilities other than emotional or behavioral disorders were established in the field-testing of the SSSK and the SSSP.

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